This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

We’re introduced to the grim world of 2023, courtesy of the gravely ominous voice-over of Dr. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), where an army of robotic Sentinels are laying waste to mutants and humans alike.

On the verge of extinction and holed up in a remote Chinese monastery, the last vestiges of the X-Men have one last slim hope when they send the consciousness of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) back to 1973 in the hope that he can inhabit his younger self and prevent the invention of the lethal Sentinels.

This provides an opportunity to revisit the young Xavier (James McAvoy) and his nemesis, Erik Lehnsherr a.k.a. Magneto (Michael Fassbender), whom we first met in the last X-Men film, First Class, and, more critically, a younger Raven/Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), whose assassination of the Sentinels’ inventor, Dr. Bolivar Trask, has disastrously unforeseen consequences.

The first thing we see is a lava lamp, as the younger Wolverine wakes up in the arms of a mafia moll on a roiling waterbed. Cue Roberta Flack singing “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and soon we’re immersed in a nostalgia-filled blast from the past that shifts the mood from downcast to playful.

The story then alternates between past and future as complications ensue and tension mounts, leading to an edge-of-the-seat climax that is sublimely satisfying.

Jackman, who has played Wolverine throughout the X-Men series, is once again a great protagonist, a gruffly genial and wry presence who anchors the film.

A superlative actress, Lawrence invests the critical role of Raven/Mystique — torn between good and going rogue — with just the right balance of subtlety and grit, despite the constraints of frequently appearing in a blue form-fitting body suit.

Nicholas Hoult, reprising his role from First Class as the young Hank/Beast, is an engaging and endearing presence, and Evan Peters (American Horror Story) is wonderfully cheeky in the small but pivotal role of Quicksilver.

As the ostensible villain Dr. Trask, Game of Thrones’ diminutive Peter Dinklage is the ideal mad scientist, playing him with a restrained and cool calculation rather than over-the-top theatricality, which makes his character all the more menacing.

Singer handles the action with typical aplomb, making scenes like the break-out of young Magneto from an impregnable Pentagon prison sizzle with energy and panache.

The film offers loads of marvelously inventive set pieces, though the decision to shoot in 3D seems rather pointless. There’s only one scene where it really matters, in the surreal dreamscape that appears when Dr. Xavier dons his Cerebro helmet and makes contact with his fellow mutants around the globe.

First-timers to the series are going to find the complexity of the plot and the relationships between the characters difficult to follow. The plot itself — like most involving time travel — also contains some glaring inconsistencies that sticklers will be sure to seize upon.

But the film is certain to please X-Men fans and lovers of sci-fi and superhero action fare in general. That should be welcome news for the beleaguered Singer, who’s recently been forced to deal with allegations of sexual abuse.

It’s Singer’s return to the director’s chair that makes the newest X-Men a worthy addition to the canon, sure to stoke audience expectations as he prepares to helm the next in the series, X-Men: Apocalypse, due for release in 2016.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com